Hey thanks for the help guys! Small world eh igot6strings. Haven't really finalized on anything yet. I've been getting mixed reactions on the G530. Some say it's good enough and some say I should go with i3 because the G530 might not cut it... I'm kind of lost

You might wanna check out this post on the XBMC forums.
It will help you figure out what "group" you belong too and with that you can find your setup recommendation by looking at the systems that meet thats groups needs.http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?pid=843683